Some questions are hard to answer. And they should be hard.
As a minister I stand before a bride and groom and ask, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forth, as long as you both shall live?” Then I ask the groom a similar question.
There are couples who respond with joy and eagerness. They have been waiting for a long time to be able to publicly say YES to that question.
There are couples who respond with tears and quivering voices, because they know what is being asked of them.
There are couples who are so afraid of the question that they want to re-write their marriage vows, replacing a single word – ‘live’ becomes ‘love’ – and they simply promise to have and to hold as long as they both shall love.
So that when things get difficult and there is sickness and poverty and pain – one person can say to the other, “I don’t love you anymore,” and walk away.
Sometimes we want to water down our answers.
Sometimes we want to avoid answering the question.
It was President Clinton who came out with that memorable line, when asked a question he said, “It depends on what the definition of “is” is.
Whenever we do a baptism, we ask certain questions of the family.
The first question we ask is this -- "Do you renounce evil, and its power in the world, which defies God’s righteousness and love?"
I was with another minister recently and he said that this question embarrassed him.
“Why,” I asked. “Don’t you believe in evil?”
It was not acknowledging the existence of evil or the renouncing of evil’s power that made my friend feel uncomfortable. What embarrassed him was how easily people answer that question.
People should be answering that question the way couples answer their wedding vows. Some should do so with joy and eagerness, because they have waited so long for the opportunity to renounce evil.
Others should be answering with tears and quivering voices because they are aware of how serious this question is.
But we tend to answer with a quick, “We do.”
There is nothing serious happening here – but there should be.
This and the other baptism questions come from the earliest years of the Christian church’s history. In the early days the way the church would conduct the baptism service would be to go to the river, or lake, and stand at one end and answer these questions. Then they would move into the water for the baptism.
And when they answered that first question, "Do you renounce evil, and its power in the world, which defies God’s righteousness and love?" --the people coming for baptism would not only answer by saying, "I renounce them!"
They would also spit --- literally and physically. They would spit, as if spitting at Satan.
Now that strikes me as a frightening thing for these people to do -- to spit at Satan, because they believed so literally in the power and existence of Satan, that they firmly believed that if he wanted to, Satan could spit fire back at them.
But today, it is different.
We are sophisticated folks. And the question about renouncing evil and its power in the world now raises within us, not fear, but apathy – or at best – amused embarrassment.
It is not a very sophisticated philosophy to think of evil as a very real presence in the world, or as Satan as an actual being, or as demons as real creatures.
As children, most of us had no problem with this article of faith. We knew there was evil in the world. For most of us, evil was the monster that lived under our own bed, or the closet.
As teenagers, however, we grew more sophisticated and looked at evil as a source of entertainment. Stephen King books can make our hair stand on end. The Ring, the Saw, the good and gory scary movies can make us jump out of our seats and a murder flick with its gore and blood is still a popular type of video to rent for late Friday night viewing.
Then as adults, our view of evil became even more sophisticated and took on the view of superstition. To believe in evil is to believe in superstition, and no one wants to believe in anything superstitious.
But biblically speaking, evil does exist in the world, and there is an evil presence out there that needs to be renounced.
In our Old Testament Lesson, we read a behind the scenes account of why Job suffers. Job never learns what we learn in the opening chapter of his story.
The angels of heaven gather to present themselves before God, and with them is Satan. When God asks where he has come from, Satan answers, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."
He has seen, he tells God, Job, who enjoys God’s divine protection. And he receives permission from God to tempt Job.
Those who believe in Satan, often believe that he is the opposite of God, the evil mirror image of God. But that is not true.
Satan is more like the opposite, evil equal of an angel. For according to the Book of Job, Satan cannot do anything without God’s permission.
Evil is a very present force in our lives.
There really is a Satan. To say that may be unsophisticated by today’s standards, but it is a biblical statement to make.
There is evil in the world. And it is a powerful force. We, as humans, have always had to deal with that presence.
It will only be the Second Coming of Christ, and the future events prophesied in Scripture that will relieve us from Satan.
In Revelation chapter 20, we can read about how "the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceived the whole world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ."
The biblical evidence proclaims that there is indeed a Satan, that there is an evil presence in the world in which we live.
And if you don’t believe the biblical evidence, take a look at the evidence in the world around us.
Read the headlines. A few months ago, a murderer was executed, but that means very little. There is another Ted Bundy, another Gary Gilmore, and another Charles Manson out there somewhere, waiting, and someday we will read about yet another serial murderer. There is evil among us.
A few days ago the British stopped what might have become history’s worst terrorist attack, and now everyone is complaining about the restrictions of carry-on luggage, because we’ve seen yet again that there is evil among us.
For those of you who are roughly my age, or older, you probably remember going to the store on your bikes at a young age, going to movies alone when you were too young to drive, walking down the quiet city sidewalk at night.
Now that you are old enough to have your own children or grandchildren you are perhaps hesitant to give your those children the freedom that you once had. An unattended child seems always in danger, and not even adults walk dark sidewalks at night anymore. There is evil among us.
The baptismal question reads, "Do you renounce evil, and its power in the world, which defies God’s righteousness and love?"
Most of us do not renounce evil. We don’t even admit that it exists. We are like the man in a piece of Arab folklore. The way the story goes is that an Arab was in his tent at night. He lit a candle in the darkness and reached over and got a fig. He opened the fig and saw that it had worms inside it. He threw it away.
He reached for another fig. It was full of worms. He threw it aside.
He reached for yet another fig. It was full of worms. He threw it aside.
Finally, he blew out the light, reached for a fig, and unable to see if it was full of worms or not, ate it in the darkness.
Some of us are like that, thinking that what we don’t know won’t hurt us.
But living in darkness doesn’t help us.
We have a hard time renouncing what we do not believe really exists. We do not really believe there is evil in the world.
Perhaps we get this from the White House, where no one ever makes a mistake, they were simply quoted out of context.
Or perhaps we get this from our judicial system. Criminals before the judge often claim that their behavior is not their fault, for they themselves were victims as children, or of society.
Or maybe it is because of the tolerant society in which we live. No one wants to be judgmental of others. So we tolerate a lot of the things that are done.
People say they believe in God, but only half of those would say they believe in Satan. Evil is not a real presence in the world, or so we believe. Evil is not something that you can renounce.
A murderer does not kill because evil exists in the world, but because of some fault within the personality.
A compulsive gambler does not go to the betting table because of evil in the world, but because there is an illness within the gambler.
Mel Gibson doesn’t get drunk and make racist remarks because of evil in the world, but because he is struggling with a disease of alcoholism.
Now I have often wondered why you can’t believe in both.
Why can’t both be true?
I believe that there are genetic influences that cause people to do things that are violent, or to follow addictive behavior patterns. I believe that society influences the behavior of individuals. I think birth order and a lot of other complex factors make us who we tend to be.
But I also believe that there is indeed some evil presence in the world that needs to be renounced.
There is a problem in our culture today that we tend to be extremists in all areas of life, including dealing with evil.
For some, there is no Satan. No outside evil force. All bad behavior is due to society’s influence, or to genetic forces, or to birth order, or to something – but it is NOT MY fault. I’m to blame.
For others, there is a Satan. There is a supernatural evil force. All my bad behavior is due to a supernatural battle between good and evil and when Satan wins, it is NOT MY fault. I’m to blame.
Amazing – which ever extreme we may take, we take it so that we don’t own responsibility. It’s not our fault.
But sooner or later, we have to answer the question – “Do you renounce evil?”
Biblically, there is evil in this world.
Psalm 51 talks about how we are sinful from birth. It’s built into our spirit, woven into the fabric of our soul, programmed into our genetic make up.
But the Bible also talks about evil from beyond us and outside us. Our New Testament lesson reminds us that the struggle is not just with flesh and blood, but with the dark powers of this world.
So we struggle with evil, and how we struggle with evil is not to rest in our own strength, but in God’s. Or as Ephesians puts it, we are to “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground."
Ephesians paints this wonderful picture of putting on the full armor of God.
“Stand firm then," says Ephesians, "with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
It is interesting to look at each individual piece of armor that the author of Ephesians mentions here, but most important here is the image of the warfare and conflict and struggle.
There is evil among us, there is danger out there in that world. We struggle with this evil all the time.
This is a struggle we cannot ignore, but in which we must be actively engaged.
Anytime we do not arm ourselves and ready ourselves for battle with evil, then we are in danger of losing the war.
There is evil among us, and we have to be ready for battle. In the words of the author of Ephesians, "Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground."
The question is, "Do you renounce evil and its power in the world?"
Can you own the responsibility that is yours to renounce that evil? It is in you. It is around you. Can you renounce that evil and stand your ground?
Copyright 2006, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
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